This article is about takeaways. Here are some stats for you to consider.
The San Francisco Giants bullpen ranks 26th out of 30 major-league teams in opponent’s OPS (.733). Giants relievers rank 25th in ERA (4.62). They rank 25th in Wins Above Average (minus-1.7).
Your takeaway should not be that the Giants have a bad bullpen.
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Rather the opposite, actually. The back-end relievers are much improved from what the Giants got from their bucket brigade in April. The frontline relievers are doing what the Giants hoped they would do. The only wrinkle is that rookie Erik Miller and second-year right-hander Ryan Walker have moved up the chain to become those primary setup relievers in front of closer Camilo Doval.
Role changes in a major-league bullpen usually happen when a team’s high-leverage arms begin to struggle. But right-handed knuckle dragger Tyler Rogers might be better than ever. His twin, left-hander Taylor Rogers, might not be pushing to return to the All-Star Game but he’s been serviceable as a second lefty. Your first takeaway, then: the Giants have juggled roles because Miller (holding lefties to a .115 average and all opponents to 4.5 hits per nine innings) and Walker (who hasn’t given up an extra-base hit to a right-handed batter in 58 confrontations this season) have simply been that nasty whenever they’ve taken the mound.
Here are a few more takeaways about the Giants bullpen:
Tyler Rogers is doing one thing better than he ever has
The league was supposed to figure out the Giants’ right-handed submarine pitcher after a year or two. That was the common supposition from some within the game as well as those with less informed hot takes who couldn’t fathom that a guy topping out at 83 mph could keep churning outs in high-leverage situations.
Well, guess what? Tyler Rogers has faced Colorado’s Charlie Blackmon more often than any big-league hitter other than Manny Machado. And over the weekend, Rogers made him swing at a pitch that nearly disappeared into Blackmon’s beard.
And then he got Blackmon to swing at a pitch way off the plate.
Whenever Rogers struggled the reason was simple. He wasn’t throwing enough strikes. This season, his zone rate of 59.2 percent is the best of his career. Perhaps in a related development, if count leverage is a factor, his opponent’s chase rate of 33.1 percent on pitches out of the zone is also the best of his career. Rogers has nudged a 50/50 mix of his two-seamer and rising slider to favor his sinker a little more often. The 60/40 pitch mix appears to be working. But mostly, he’s throwing strikes. And he’s benefiting from the balanced schedule in which the Giants face all 29 teams and play their NL West rivals 12 times instead of 19.
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Not that those 16 previous plate appearances helped Blackmon on Saturday.
Sean Hjelle is good now
Like, really good. The 27-year-old right-hander was mostly known for being the tallest pitcher in major-league history — he’s 6-foot-11 1/2 in his socks, so shove it, Jon Rauch — and for having an ERA that also scraped the sky (6.17 in 23 appearances over the previous two seasons). But he’s been a different pitcher this season. Hjelle has a 1.46 ERA over his last nine appearances. He’s struck out 15 without walking a batter over those 12 1/3 innings.
When he struck out the side May 3 in Philadelphia (J.T. Realmuto, Brandon Marsh and Nick Castellanos), he said in all earnestness that he wasn’t sure he’d done that on any level in his pro career. Two days later, he did it twice. Bryce Harper and Kyle Schwarber were among those who trudged back to the dugout as Hjelle fanned six in two innings.
The biggest takeaway here is that Harper and Schwarber are left-handed hitters. Hjelle is holding lefties to a .148 average this season and that’s due to a new cutter that he worked on over the offseason. Instead of attacking lefties with a changeup or slider, he’s disguising his breaking pitch better and keeping the ball off the barrel. He’s throwing strikes dependably, too. It’s amazing what happens when you begin to feel confident that you can throw the baseball past major league hitters.
Hjelle is likely to continue in a multiple-inning role, but Giants manager Bob Melvin didn’t hesitate to use him with a two-run lead in the sixth inning Sunday on an afternoon when Walker and Miller were off limits due to recent workload. Hjelle always managed to maintain a good blend of determination with a lighthearted personality even while struggling to have success in the big leagues. So there are a lot of folks in the clubhouse who are thrilled to see him thriving now.
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Randy Rodríguez is a back-end guy who throws 100 mph
When you’re a major-league manager, you take that. Rodríguez was a 40-man roster afterthought last season when he struggled to throw strikes in the minor leagues. But it wasn’t long ago when Doval was in a similar position in his development. The Giants never forgot about the potential impact that Rodríguez could make if he could fill up the zone.
He’s doing it now. The 24-year-old right-hander has 12 strikeouts vs. three walks in 8 2/3 innings and he’s fared well despite being pushed out of necessity into a multiple-inning role that he hadn’t experienced since being converted from the rotation to relief following the 2022 season at High-A Eugene.
This is where you begin to understand how the Giants bullpen, as presently constituted, is much better than its aggregate statistics. Remember that minus-1.8 Wins Above Average? Those inputs included minus-2.0 WAA from Kai-Wei Teng, Daulton Jefferies, Mitch White, Landen Roupp and Nick Avila. Among that group, only Avila is still on the active roster. And Roupp is likely to be better the next time the Giants need him. In his last two appearances for Triple-A Sacramento, the curveball artist has thrown eight shutout innings, allowed just three hits and has a K/BB ratio of 13/2.
The macro takeaway here? The Giants bullpen is beginning to coalesce at the right time. Converted reliever Jordan Hicks, who is already within 22 innings of his major-league high, has acknowledged his legs are already beginning to feel a bit heavier as he adjusts to a starting role. Rookie left-hander Kyle Harrison’s innings must be paced as well. And even if Blake Snell returns to his Cy Young Award form when he is activated to take the mound Wednesday at Pittsburgh, his next complete game in the big leagues will be his first. The Giants will be waiting longer on Alex Cobb, too, as he continues to battle shoulder issues in an attempt to ramp up from offseason hip surgery.
The Giants should have enough rotation depth to compete from series to series, but they aren’t the kind of starting group that can be pushed hard in May and June. Every bullpen will have their ups and downs over a 162-game season. But the Giants will require relief options that are both dependable and plentiful. For now, anyway, this collection of relievers looks capable of providing both.
(Photo of Hjelle: Robert Edwards / USA Today)
Andrew Baggarly is a senior writer for The Athletic and covers the San Francisco Giants. He has covered Major League Baseball for more than two decades, including the Giants since 2004 for the Oakland Tribune, San Jose Mercury News and Comcast SportsNet Bay Area. He is the author of two books that document the most successful era in franchise history: “A Band of Misfits: Tales of the 2010 San Francisco Giants” and “Giant Splash: Bondsian Blasts, World Series Parades and Other Thrilling Moments By the Bay.” Follow Andrew on Twitter @extrabaggs
